Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom

China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War

By: Stephen R. Platt

Narrated by: Angela Lin

Stephen R. Platt is widely respected for his incisive nonfiction, particularly in regard to his knowledge and understanding of China. With Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, Platt details the absorbing narrative of the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in the loss of 20 million lives. Occurring in the 1850s, this is the story of a cultural movement characterized by intriguing personages such as influential military strategist Zeng Guofan and brilliant Taiping leader Hong Rengan.

©2012 Stephen R. Platt (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

“China’s brutal Taiping Civil War erupted in the 1850s and raged until the fall of rebel-held Nanjing in 1864. The bloodbath paralleled our own North-South conflict, but dwarfed it in terms of casualties, geography and global fallout . . . [Platt] juxtaposes the competing ideologies and leaders of the ruling Manchu Qing dynasty and the Hunan Taiping rebels with savvy and assurance. By neatly folding in the machinations of the British, Platt paints a picture of combat dire enough to have choked the Yangtze’s flow several times with discarded victims.” (Jonathan E. Lazarus, Newark Star-Ledger)

“Splendid . . . An upheaval that led to the deaths of 20 million, dwarfing the simultaneously fought American Civil War, deserves to be better known, and Platt accomplishes this with a superb history of a 19th-century China faced with internal disorder and predatory Western intrusions.” ( Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

“Stephen Platt brings to vivid life a pivotal chapter in China’s history that has been all but forgotten: the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century, which cost one of the greatest losses of life of any war in history. It had far-reaching consequences that still reverberate in contemporary China. Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom is a fascinating work by a first-class historian and superb writer.” (Henry Kissinger)

Engaging naration, needs more character developmet

So here's the thing, I listened to the whole what, 17 hours? Even after all that I feel like I didn't really learn a whole lot. The begining made sense and the end made some sense but as it seems to always be, the middle made absolutely no sense at all, how much was the british actually involved in this conflict? it's implied that Charles Gordon was a significant part of this war, but is that even accurate? The level of eurocentrism in this book really detracts from the actual story tbat was going on hear and I'd really like to know more about the religious identity of the taiping. I'll say this, I'm glad I finished it, I can finally move on to something else.

A real-life story of the apocalypse

What did you love best about Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom?

The humanization of the characters, the apocalyptic visions of the last days of the Chinese empire, and the feeling of immersion and immediacy.

Which scene was your favorite?

The first scene, where the British gunboats break into the Chinese river, and the Chinese peasants bow down to them and worship them. That set the tone for the whole book.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The end of the rebellion is extremely sad.

Any additional comments?

There are a few really apocalyptic wars that humans have managed to document - the World Wars, the Thirty Years War, the Russian and Chinese Civil Wars...and the Taiping Rebellion. If you want to read about cataclysmic, world-shattering wars, include this book in your reading series.

Spellbinding at Its Best

At Its best, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom is a gripping and humanizing account of a chapter of history that had always been taught to me as a bout of collective insanity on the part of the Taiping. The early chapters of this book that laid out the dawn of the rebellion made me feel an incredible kinship with the Taiping. What had to me always been the insane story of Jesus' younger brother turned out to be a mass movement of people disheartened with the fact that their prevailing society promised them something it did not deliver. I felt a strong sense of the personalities of the characters at the heart of the narrative. Platt, as usual, also does a great job of narrating the scheming and politicking the British and Americans did to work this bloody revolution to their maximum benefit.
All that being said, there are parts of this book that I found hard to love. I read Platt's Opium War book before this one, and at the end of that I found myself a little confused at how little the book focused on the actual Opium War, opting instead to cover the years of buildup that preceded it. Having now read a book that stays rooted in the narrative of a 14-year-long civil war, I have a lot more appreciation for the merits of that decision. I found myself slogging through the parts of this book that discussed the minutae of battles and who took what city with what army. Almost everything besides that, the politics, the descent into brutality by both sides as the war dragged on, even the logistics of supplying these armies for so long, held my attention much more firmly than the conflict narrative itself. I set this book aside multiple times before I finished it, and often found myself zoning out for significant stretches.
I think this book would be better read than listened to, at least for me. My unfamiliarity with the finer points of Chinese geography and political subdivisions, as well as my unfamiliarity with Chinese names, led to me having difficulty keeping track of the peripheral figures and settings brought up in the book. I don't think the author or narrarator are to blame for that at all, but someone like me might want to pick up the text to have a visual anchor.
In all, I'm glad I kept on with this book, and feel like I need to follow it up with books on the Boxer Rebellion and the 1911 revolution. At its peak, it plenty rivals Imperial Twilight, but the sprawling, trudging nature of covering a decade and a half of war led to some dull and low points for me.

Captivating and enlightening

I found this book to be a captivating account of a period in Chinese history about which I knew almost nothing. The authors depiction of the events and characters involved in the period gave them life and kept me wanting to continue. The reader was excellent. I really enjoyed her style.

Interesting and informative

This is an interesting and informative book, but no human being is able to understand how evil Lord Elgin could be by ordering the total destruction of Summer Palace.